St. Mary's will be good this season, but I don't think we will be great. We've got very strong defense in the post (our starting SF, PF and C have athleticism/defense combos of 91/95, 81/91 and 81/88), but our perimeter defense will be a little softer and we don't have a true PG, which will make our offense a little less efficient than I'd like it to be. We will likely be back in the NT, but I wouldn't look for us to make a deep run unless we get a favorable draw.

Incarnate Word returns plenty of talent from last year's NT champs, with 4 of the top 25 ranked players. While we started a PG and 4 PFs during last year's NT run, I suspect this team might be a little more traditional.

I'd put our 6 seniors up against anybody, but the bench might be the difference in those big games. We will find out early, as we take on Humboldt St and their 12 upperclassmen in what should be a game between top 5 teams to open the season.

Valdosta returns 11 players and is ready to battle Incarnate Word for the Heartland West crown. We split our H2H matchups last season and tied in the standings. It will be a fun battle. Alazer did a great job building this team. Now I just hope to coach them to a deep NT run.

Queens is gonna be a bit down this year although we do return one of the better scorers in the country in Kelvin Addison. We will get beat up on this year by Longwood. Limestone and Pfeiffer but we were able to put together a very nice recruiting class this season that should keep us competitive in the super tough CVAC West.

Posted by bbunch on 2/12/2014 11:47:00 AM (view original):Humboldt is definitely a strong superclass - but I think Valdosta St. might have the best team coming in this season - or at least the best starting 5.

You beat me to it bbunch. Valdosta St is the other team with multiple players in the top 25 and IW gets the privilege of playing them twice. They may have us on speed & athleticism in the backcourt.

Recruited shotgun style for the first time in a long time. Sent calls/evals out to 20+ prospects... some of which who ended up signing with Bellarmine, St Edwards, UW-Parkside, Lander, Valdosta St, Cal St Stanilaus, St Mary's TX, and Grand Canyon. So I was on some good prospects. Signed 3 I like late. But for 2nd year in a row I'm dependent on an IE showing up.

Hacker - out of curiosity, was it Williamson who you were looking at that I got?

Lander will be...interesting. Return 10 (but one was rs, one ineligible) from last years runner-up finish. Should be tough defensively, probably score well enough to make the sweet 16. We will see, we will definitely be dependent on the draw we get in the NT.

I do think these are the 3 best recruits (in one class) I've signed. Pretty pumped up about Gotcher, should blow by 750 rating. Hopefully he takes the RS.

Overall I think the humans in the Peach did an awesome job. We won't ever have the money of the CVAC or Heartland but we do put up a pretty good fight for being sandwiched between those two power conferences.

Posted by bbunch on 2/12/2014 11:47:00 AM (view original):Humboldt is definitely a strong superclass - but I think Valdosta St. might have the best team coming in this season - or at least the best starting 5.

Come on now, don't but that kind of pressure on me! After a quick look around there are a lot of teams that I would put in title contention. Incarnate, Humboldt, Bryant, Parkside, Chaminade, Hillsdale, San Diego, St Marys, Longwood, Limestone all look really tough. I'm sure there are some other teams I missed to but I bet the eventual champion comes from that list.